Phone helps cops crack missing cases in Bihar

JOY SENGUPTA

Patna, July 2: In just over 12 hours on Wednesday, the men in uniform tasted success in cracking three cases of youngsters disappearing from their homes.

However, in the Kankerbagh “abduction” of 24-year-old Anshu on June 23, the police could not find the girl but arrested Dharmendra, who had an alleged affair with her and taken her forcibly to an unknown destination.

The girl proved smarter as she allegedly had dumped Dharmendra and fled away with one Chandan. Dharmendra was arrested on Tuesday night.

“Altogether there were three missing cases which the police were trying to solve. The first happened on June 23 involving the girl. The second was the disappearance of 14-year-old Rahul Kumar from the Kautilya Nagar area under the Airport police station area and the third involving three girls from Kalyanpur village. The last two incidents had taken place on June 30. The police have been able to solve all the three cases virtually barring the Kankerbagh one in which the girl chose to flee again with another person,” Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj said.

The three girls were recovered by a special police team from Dhanbad railway station early on Wednesday morning.

“They had left their home due to different reasons. During questioning, one said her family was making her study in a government school against her wishes. The other said her family was putting a lot of restrictions on her and she wished to move freely. The third girl said she hated her tuition classes. All the three being friends and from the same village, they decided to leave home,” an officer at the Athmalgola police station said.

“On June 30 morning, they left for their tuitions but then went to the Mithapur bus stand from where they caught a bus for Dhanbad. Right now, the girls are not saying things clearly and also the reason behind them going to Dhanbad is unknown. The police were constantly tracking them through their cellphone tower locations and had got their location. Early on Wednesday morning, the Dhanbad GRP found these girls and got suspicious. They were detained and by that time the Patna police team had also reached and they were recovered,” the officer added.

In the case of Rahul Kumar, who had gone missing on the same day from the Kautilya Nagar locality, it was fear of mathematics and his schoolteacher.

The boy is a student of Class VII at Ideal Public School. Once an FIR was lodged, the police took the matter seriously and a team started searches. The family had provided the cops his picture and the same was enlarged and teams stepped up the search. Around noon on Wednesday, one Umesh Rai, who lives in the same Kautilya Nagar only, saw the boy near the Khadi Gram Udyog building.

“During initial questioning, the boy, looking terrified, said he had been thrashed by his maths teacher a day before and decided to flee. The boy is frightened and police have not questioned him much. However, the family is thinking about lodging an FIR against the teacher,” said S. Numaani, DSP (Sachivalaya).

In the abduction case of Anshu on June 23, matters had got complicated even after the arrest of the main accused, Maharaaj said. “It is proving to be a strange case and now it is sure that the girl had eloped,” Maharaaj said.